OCT. 10 ASSAULT ON NICARAGUANS IS LAID TO C.I.A.

By The Associated Press

Published: April 18, 1984

WASHINGTON, April 17—
Three months before the mining of Nicaragua's harbors, the Central Intelligence Agency directed a sabotage raid against the Nicaraguan port of Corinto, destroying 3.2 million gallons of fuel and forcing the town's evacuation, Congressional sources say.

The sources said that like the mining, the Oct. 10 raid on Corinto was carried out by Latin American mercenaries hired by the C.I.A. They reached the port by speedboat from an offshore ship where American C.I.A. agents directed the operation, the sources said in interviews on Monday and today.

The C.I.A. declined to comment today on the report of its role in the operation.

''This was totally a C.I.A. operation,'' one Congressional source said, adding that the raid, not the mining, which began in January, was the first time the C.I.A. had directly entered the fighting against the leftist Nicaraguan Government.

Rebel Leader Tells of Raids

Another source said the Corinto raid was one in a series of attacks on seaports directed by the C.I.A. dating back to an attack on oil-storage and pipeline facilities at Puerto Sandino Sept. 8. Both Corinto and Puerto Sandino are on Nicaragua's Pacific coast.

In an interview today, Adolfo Calero, head of the the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, said Nicaraguan rebels from his group carried out the raids, but he added that he did not know the degree of the American agency's involvement or whether saboteurs from other Latin American countries took part.

Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who said last week that they were not adequately informed about the mining, also appeared not to have known about the agency's direct role in the Corinto raid, according to sources close to the panel.

How the Committee Learned

One source said the C.I.A. provided no information on the Corinto attack and told the committee in September that the Puerto Sandino operation was carried out by Latin American scuba divers who worked for Mr. Calero's Honduras-based rebel group.

The sources said the committee staff learned on March 30 that the special paramilitary team worked for the C.I.A. when the agency sent a letter on the mining that mentioned ''unilaterally controlled Latino assets,'' meaning agents directed exclusively by the agency.

On April 2 the C.I.A. told the Senate committee staff that those agents were used in the seaport mining operations, a disclosure that one source said led to the panel's discovery that the Corinto raid and other port attacks also were directed by the C.I.A.

In those raids, the sources said, American agents remained on a mother ship more than 12 miles off the Nicaraguan coast, the territorial waters recognized by the United States, although Nicaragua claims territory extending 200 miles from its shores. The Latin American mercenaries then reached the coast in speedboats supplied by the C.I.A. Before the seaport raids and mining, the C.I.A. controlled the rebel groups primarily through allocation of military supplies, the sources said. By threatening to withhold supplies and training, the agency could press the groups into accepting its advice, but the C.I.A. did not direct specific military operations, the sources said.

Corinto residents said that on the night of Oct. 10, the attackers positioned their speedboats behind a South Korean ship, then opened fire on oil- storage tanks. The residents said the shells set one oil tank ablaze, touching off a chain of fires at nearby fuel tanks that raged out of control for two days. The Nicaraguan Government says 112 people were injured, including three South Korean sailors, and more than 20,000 residents were evacuated from Corinto, the nation's chief oil port.

A day after the Corinto raid, Nicaragua's Sandinista Government charged that the ''criminal attack'' was ''part of the plans of the Central Intelligence Agency.'' The rebel group, however, took responsibility for the attack, saying it was intended to ''paralyze the war apparatus of the leftist regime.''

The C.I.A. declined to comment today on the report of its role in the operation. President Reagan has accused the Sandinistas of supporting leftist guerrillas in nearby El Salvador and working with the Soviet Union to ''install Communism by force throughout this hemisphere.''

Mr. Reagan is seeking $21 million from Congress to continue two and a half years of C.I.A. support for the anti- Government rebels. The Senate approved the money late last month, but after the mining disclosures, both the House and Senate passed a nonbinding resolution opposing the mining of Nicaragua's harbors.

On April 9, Nicaragua filed suit against the United States before the International Court of Justice, saying that ''its territory has been invaded by a military force organized and directed by the United States.'' The attacks on Corinto and Puerto Sandino were two of the incidents cited.

But the Reagan Administration has announced that it will not accept the Court's rulings on cases involving Central America for two years.